Garth Brooks: Gunslinger (Sony)

Graham Reid | Feb 9, 2017 | 1 min read

Pure Adrenalin

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When Garth Brooks emerged
in the Nineties and professed as much love for rock bands like Kansas
and Kiss as the country legends he invited immediate derision from
critics who looked for something they called authenticity. And this
marketing graduate wasn't it.

Well, Brooks was simply
being an honest product of his generation and it wasn't the music of
those Middle American rock bands he was necessarily impressed by but
the way they delivered a crowd-pleasing stadium show.

And Garth – who swung on
rope ladders, had great lighting and delivered rocking-out country
music – sure did that. Even when he came to New Zealand and lost
money doing so, he pulled out all the stops at the Supertop.

Those who dismissed Brooks
didn't quite get what he was up to musically either: he wrote songs
from the heartland for sure but he addressed domestic abuse, the hard
edges of life and celebrated hard working people.

He was no Hank Williams
and was never going to be, but he rarely went down the low path into
singing bellicose, chest-beating patriotic songs like many of his
peers and those who have followed him. We are seeing the worst of
their kind post 9-11 and in that context Brooks still sounds like a
voice working the tradition of mainstream country (sometimes with a
rock band as on the broody and angry tribute to individuality on Pure
Adrenalin).

Here he doesn't mess the
with popular – but not populist – template and sings about
honky-tonks, sex (Baby Let's Lay Down and Dance), buddies and beer
and the girl in the kitchen wearing his shirt (Cowboys and Friends),
an insider-job robbery in a casino (Bang! Bang!) and comes of as an amalgam of
the Eagles and Springsteen on 8Teen.

Brooks has long been a
good co-writer and calls in others here like Bobby Wood for the
string coloured and sentimental ballad He Really Loves You.

There are some duffers
here (Weekend stands out in this regard as pretty flaccid and
makeweight, more Jimmy Buffet than necessary) and as always, it's
easy to point to other artists who have a great reach in this
crossover between rock and country (Chris Stapleton comes to mind).

But, at 55, Brooks still
sounds like a contender who knows he has to put up or shut up.

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